Up Up With People!

Ready for the show - in my costume!

Up up with people, you meet 'em wherever you go!  Up up with people, they're the best kinda folks ya know!  If more people were FOR people all people everywhere, there'd be a lot less people to worry about and a lot more people who care!

       It has been sixteen years since I traveled with the Up With People organization.  I was eighteen years old at the time and full of optimism and the belief that I could help change the world for the better!  I had just graduated from high school and felt so loved and supported as I headed out.  Mom and Dad gave me a hard-sided suitcase for graduation to use during my year of travel.  I performed a concert in my hometown to raise money for my trip and it was well-attended and so fun for me.  My Mom and Dad drove me to Colorado where I started my five weeks of training in July of 1995.  

        You may be wondering at this point:  What IS Up With People?  Basically it is an international education and service organization in which we travel to different countries and perform shows about peace and understanding among nations and do community service and learning projects in the communities we perform in.  We stay with host families and travel on buses.  I had 150 people in my cast from 26 different countries.  We were 60% non-Americans.  

       We visited 7 different countries:  All across the United States, into Ontario, Canada, down to South America to Venezuela, over to Europe to Germany, Sweden, Denmark, two days in Paris, France, and lastly to Portugal on the coast.  My best friends were Anette from Germany, Claudia from the Netherlands, Aki from Japan, Johanna from Sweden, Ueli from Switzerland, Katie from Maine/Connecticut/Texas, Roma from Russia, Lili from Mexico, Mona from Germany, and Wendy from Alaska.  So, most of my friends spoke English as a second language.  I enjoyed learning about their homes and families and cultures while sharing about my life and family in Minnesota!

Service learning project

Here is a picture of me at a daycare center for developmentally delayed children.  Aki from Japan, Anette from Germany, and Adriel from Singapore were in my group.  This was one of my favorite service project days because Shirlee (the woman in red) was so inspiring.  She loves her students and she told me, "I'm happy when they're happy!"  So, her job is basically to try to keep them as happy as possible.  There were some neat activities for the students to do there.  

Ice skating with paper plates!!!

Here is a service project I did in LOTS of cities around the world!  I loved going into classrooms to give presentations or simply help out.  Here I am with Aske from Denmark and Devon from Bermuda.  I have just done my little talk about living in Minnesota and now we are pretending to ice skate on a frozen Minnesota lake.  The kids LOVED it!  My time in Up With People helped confirm my desire to be a teacher!

Claudia in front of the Statue of Liberty

Besides doing our show and our community service projects, we got to see some great sights!  This photo is of Claudia from the Netherlands in front of the Statue of Liberty in New York City.  We had a fun day together.  Aki from Japan was with us and when she saw lady liberty she kept exclaiming, "My dream, my dream!"  It was cool!  Some other great sights we saw that year included The Air Force Academy in Colorado, The House on the Rock in Wisconsin, The Women's History Museum in Seneca Falls, New York, Niagara Falls, Phantom of the Opera performed in Toronto, Canada, Norman Rockwell's home in Vermont, Boston, The Salem Witch Museum, The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, Salvador Dali Museum, in St. Petersburg, Florida, Alligator Alley in Florida, The Florida Aquarium in Tampa, The Kennedy Space Center in Florida and Disney World in Florida, Martin Luther King Junior's birthplace in Atlanta, Georgia, Coca-Cola Musuem in Atlanta Georgia, a beautiful beach in Venezuela, Easter in Germany, Stockholm, Sweden, Coppenhagen, Denmark, Legoland in Odense, Denmark, Luneborg and Koln, Germany, Munzenberg Castle in Germany, Paris and Versailles, France, Port Wine Factory in Portugal, and many beautiful sunsets on the Portugal coast!  I was very happy to get to see so many sights.  I was placed on the "Activity Crew" in many cities.  I loved that!  But, that meant I did not have any major parts in the show we performed.  The show was called "The Festival" and I was like a townsperson.  Sometimes I sang on the microphone group and once I played piano for the show and sometimes I got to be out in front in a funny "Flintstones" outfit and mouth the words to the Flintstones theme song.  But, overall I was not that important to the show.  150 people is too many to fit on most stages, so about 25 of us were put on Activity Crews.  It was really hard for me at first to not get a bigger role in the show, but as time went on I learned that in many ways I was very, very lucky to get to do activities and see sights that some of the people in the major roles never got to do or see.

     The host families we stayed with were wonderful.  In college I got to stay with host families on orchestra tours, and I used to always tell people, "I've stayed with over 100 host families in my life and I've never had a bad experience!"  I was exaggerating slightly.... there was that host family that had a house blue with smoke and gave us McDonald's hamburgers and fries for breakfast...... and that host family that got upset with me for starting to nod off when they were trying to show us the sights of their town (for hours!)...... I was soooooo tired!  But, overall the host families were kind and generous and fun!  I kept in touch with some of them for a long time. 

Returning home to Minnesota!

     Speaking of keeping in touch with people.  I thought I would keep in touch with many of my cast-mates (and Facebook has helped with that) but other than one wonderful friend, Anette, I have not kept in touch with people the way I would have liked.  But, I do believe that with many of them, if I saw them again, it would be just like old times and in minutes we would be chatting and smiling and caring all over again.

      I continue to think about my Up With People experiences and continue to be grateful for all the amazing experiences I had and great sights I got to see!  I loved that there was something new every single day.  I never took that excitement for granted.  I felt adventurous and independent.  I grew up a lot that year.  There were times I was dreadfully homesick and times when I was not treated fairly.  I can be a natural leader - but usually just when a leader is needed.  Up With People was 150 leaders put together and that was sometimes hard.  I was commanded to do things sometimes and not given a fair chance to express myself.  I usually did as I was told, but I saw many rebels around me.  It was probably good that I went right after high school when I was used to doing as I was told and didn't question authority.  I have very little respect now for some of the staff members from Up With People, but at the time I was a good girl and did as I was told.  If I could change one thing about my year, I think I would stand up for myself and speak out more and be bolder!  I continue to have dreams that I am in Up With People again with the same cast and we are all working together to make things run more smoothly and trying to be more fair and more positive.  I always wake up feeling hopeful and a little sad.  These are the ins and outs of a program that changed me and 149 others.  I remember once when Speta said, "Up With People may not be the best year of your life, but it makes your life the best!"  I have always liked that saying because it takes the pressure off - it makes it okay that there were times in Up With People that were frustrating and lonely and not fun, but I am able to look back and reap the benefits and the good from that year.  That year helped me become a better teacher.  It helped me learn how to better communicate with others.  It gave me a world view that is priceless.  It gave me compassion for others and a yearning to know peoples' stories.  It gave me hope for the world and future generations.  It was a year of adventure that was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I'm glad I took it.  And, I'm so grateful for my parents' support as they gave that wonderful year to me.